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Five revisions later, the folks at Bangor television station WABI (Channel 5) think they finally have their final University of Maine sports schedule … Hopefully.
The high point of the schedule is this week as WABI carried a Maine hockey game and women’s basketball game last Saturday plus the men’s basketball game Sunday. Channel 5 will also carry Friday night’s Maine hockey game with Boston College at Alfond Arena.
The games are part of WABI’s expanded 15-game Maine sports telecast schedule which included four Maine regular season football games plus the Black Bears’ NCAA Division I-AA quarterfinal playoff game.
Surprisingly, WABI’s Maine sports schedule also included regular season basketball games for the first time in at least two years.
“I know. It seems strange to me too, but these are the first basketball games we’ve done in awhile,” said WABI program director Hiltz. “We’ve had a lot of trouble with basketball. We just had difficulty making that fit. It was hard and we just got to the point where we just couldn’t get anything on. This year was a little cleaner for us.”
The fact that WABI lost rights to the Eastern Maine Class A high school basketball tournament for the first time in 50 years had one bright spot. It opened up WABI’s schedule for more UMaine coverage.
“We would not have been able to do the Feb. 28 BU game if not for losing the high school coverage,” Hiltz said. “Basketball was floating at the time, but we were able to do it.”
WABI was going to air women’s and men’s basketball Feb. 22 and 23. In an ironic twist, those games won’t be aired because WABI is helping Maine Public Broadcasting System (Maine PBS) broadcast high school basketball tourney games by renting out some of its equipment.
So what exactly goes into the decision-making process at WABI when it comes to picking games to broadcast?
“First, we try to keep the [network] pre-emptions to a minimum throughout the year,” Hiltz explained.
Second, WABI has to find out which games are available. Atlantic 10 football and Hockey East league rules restrict the number of games available to TV based on whether or not other league games are already being broadcast. For instance, if a station in Manchester, N.H., is airing Maine-UNH hockey, no other New England station may carry a Hockey East game at the same time, whether the games are being aired in the same TV market or not.
Once WABI has its list of available games, the list is further slimmed down by factors such as dates and times.
“We like to have weekend day games if we can, especially when we’re trying to keep network pre-emptions down,” Hiltz said. “We love doing the football games and hockey games are obviously popular.”
So is hockey, despite the fact that hockey isn’t always easy to schedule either.
“We have great rating performance out of hockey,” Hiltz said. “It’s very visible and it can play up against anything on a Friday or Saturday night and it’s good to know people are watching what you’re doing. It’s a premium product and a proven commodity.”
And the rest of the schedule? There are two more hockey games on tap after Friday: Saturday, Feb. 15 (Providence) and Friday, Feb. 28 (Boston University). That is, unless there are any more revisions.
“Five revisions, we hope, is it,” Hiltz said with a chuckle. “That’s enough.”
Lebron James on NESN
New England Sports Network will air high school basketball star Lebron James’ first game back from a suspension Saturday, when his St. Vincent-St. Mary’s (Akron, Ohio) Irish play Westchester (Los Angeles) High, led by top-10 recruit Trevor Ariza. The game will air live at 7:30 p.m. James was suspended for accepting two jerseys valued at $845, but the suspension was temporarily lifted by a judge.
Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600, or aneff@bangordailynews.net
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